In what has unknowingly become a tradition for me I have been absolutely gorging myself on movies. Watching between two and four throughout this holiday season. I guess that it makes sense considering the massive amount of free time on my hands and my general love of movies. I’ve been catching up on a lot of stuff I have missed as well re-watching some old favorites. Here’s a few I have been watching lately and mini-reviews of them along with my Netflix rating.
(500) Days of Summer: I find that it is extremely easy to write about things you do not like and extremely hard to write about the things you do like. This one definitely falls into the latter category. This movie was basically made for me. It’s really good and the emotionals are real, but it’s light enough that I could watch it over and over. Great soundtrack and a lot of really creative film stuff that I really enjoyed. The best way I can describe how much I like this movie is the ongoing debate I am having with myself trying to figure out if I would look good dressed like the lead character in this movie (pictured) and if I should start dressing like him. I could pull that off, right? Ummm, yeah. That good. *****
Paper Heart: The semi-fake documentary Charlene Yi and Michael Cera love story. First of all, it really sort of pissed me off to find out that they didn’t really date. WTF!? Other than that I thought this movie was decent, but nothing really special overall. Maybe my hopes for it were too high (I can remember writing someone of facebook that this was going to be the greatest movie of all time), but I think it didn’t really fulfill on the promise of the trailer. I think I saw every celebrity interviewed in the trailer as well as some of the best Michael Cera related parts which just left some of the “what is love?” documentary parts (that the best of were also shown in the trailer). Decent, but maybe I would have enjoyed it more without the trailer. ***
Extract: Mike Judge! Jason Bateman! Mila Kunis! Kristen Wiig! David Koechner! It’s like a smorgasboard of my favorite people. I didn’t really know what to expect from this one. I was expecting a comedy, but overall I didn’t really find it that funny. It had funny parts and funny ideas, but I never really busted out laughing. I enjoyed it a lot though as it tells a decent story and there is an air of “where the hell is this thing going?” about it that I don’t get enough of these days. The ending is understated and surprised me about how happy I was that it ended that way. After the misfire of Idiocracy (which had hilarious ideas, but bad execution) it’s good to see Mike Judge making good films again. Now, if someone could just go see them that’d be great. (Wait, that includes me. Crap!) ***
Rachel Getting Married: WOW. I had no idea. Really, no clue that this movie would be this good. There are things that happen in the middle of this movie that would be the end of most movies. I couldn’t believe how intense it got at times and how it never really did what you wanted to. Also, this looks like the greatest wedding of all time and I now have to rethink all of my cool wedding ideas because of it. (What? I have cool wedding ideas. Like what if we said the wedding started at like 2:00, but at 2:15 only my groomsmen were out and everyone started whispering that the wedding was off and I had cold feet. Then the piano stops playing, everyone goes into a panic and just when the sound of everyone talking starts to get loud the lights go out (!) and Metallica’s Enter Sandman starts playing throughout the building. A spotlight is shined on a balcony in the back of the room where I am seen shotgunning a beer. I then walk down through the crowd high-fiving all my friends and family members on the way to the altar. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Try and convince me that wouldn’t be the coolest thing you’ve ever seen at a wedding, you can’t. Sadly, there isn’t a girl in the world who would agree to let me do this. Maybe if we changed the song?) *****
Sugar: UGH. What a fucking letdown this movie was. A movie about a baseball player from the Dominican Republic that moves to America to play minor league baseball. Sound rights up my alley, right? That’s what I thought too. I was all ready to give it five stars on Netflix until I watched the movie. My final rating? Two stars. I don’t give ANYTHING two stars. Why? SPOILERS (which I don’t care about because you shouldn’t see this movie), but after having early success he gets hurt and then isn’t as good when he comes back. Instead of, you know, rehabbing his injury he quits baseball and moves to New York to work as a carpenter/dishwasher and live as an illegal immigrant. Ummm, what? What exactly is the point of this movie? According to the synopsis it’s:
As much a story about the promise of the American dream as it is about America’s national pastime, this film dramatizes the hard lessons learned when hope and reality clash.
That is a bold faced lie. This movie isn’t about the national pastime at all and if the idea is that he really wasn’t good enough to make it at baseball than they did a shitty job of executing it. Seriously, what is the point of this movie? That it’s okay to give up on your dreams? That when you face adversity you should just give up? That it’s okay to live as an illegal immigrant if it makes your life better? I don’t know and I don’t care, I hate this movie.
(By the way, this movie is the by “the people who brought you Half Nelson” which I also didn’t like. Oh, I’m a white teacher at an all black school and I’m on crack. Help me learn an important lesson about ife, little black girl. Fuck off boring movie. You know what really pisses me off? Their next movie sounds good too.) **
Cocaine Cowboys: Good documentary about cocaine in Miami in the 80s. It’s unbelievable to think back on this as someone that is my age. I’ve always known cocaine as a bad drug that will kill you and ruin your life, but there are scenes in this movie that have people talking about it at the time like it’s the greatest thing in the world. Unbelievable. It’s worth watching for that stuff alone, but it’s got a lot more cool stuff. Some of the craziest drug cartel related murdering I’ve ever heard, bribery, cool tech strategies to drop it into the country and women who did not age well. Always a good recipe for a good documentary. ***
D-Tox: Direct to video Sylvester Stallone movie about cops in rehab that also features Kris Kristofferson and Robert Patrick? Yes please. This movie wasn’t the best thing in the world, but it wasn’t the worst thing either. I can see where it went wrong in the production, but I would say it was enjoyable overall. The movie does a good job of concealing who the bad guy is and there are a few good rehab related parts. Good time waster. **
Adventureland: Like (500) Days of Summer this is the kind of movie I like to watch and the kind of movie I could see myself making. Set in the summer of 1987 it’s not a laugh out loud funny movie, but it’s a really sweet one that is pretty true to life (being semi-autobiographical will do that for a movie). They nail every 80s detail that you could believe this movie was actually made back then. Kristen Stewart is pretty awesome in this movie and I should probably start paying more attention to her, but I like just about everyone else in the cast (although I should admit that Jesse Eisenberg took me out of the movie a couple times because I could just not believe Kristen Stewart would hook up with him. That poor man’s Michael Cera thing might be sticking because I could see her hooking up with him, but really who wouldn’t?) I really like this movie and I hope it comes on cable soon so that I can start watching it whenever it comes on. To me that’s the only test a movie ever needs to pass, would I watch it again? And I would watch this movie at least 50 more times. ****
